Coupons and discounted flyers are used by manufacturers and retailers as an incentive to prospective and current consumers to purchase products made or sold by the manufacturers or retailers. Manufacturers offer price reductions to consumers to induce the consumer to purchase their product rather than a similar product produced by a competitor. Retailers use the coupons to entice consumers to purchase the same products from their stores rather than one of their competitor's outlets.
Coupons are distributed in any number of ways. The most common methods of distribution include in-store flyers, on-product delivery, magazine and newspaper delivery, and direct mailings. It has become advantageous for retailers to use direct marketing firms rather than in-house employees to advertise their products in local markets. Part of the direct market retailers advertising efforts include gathering consumer information.
The direct marketing firms will conduct marketing consumer advertising surveys for the retailers to determine, among other characteristics, gender, age, marital status, household income and product needs. Collecting this data, using primarily either written or telephonic surveys, direct marketing firms can target specific products to specific consumers of retailers, providing price reductions to target consumers and cost savings to the retailers by reducing the printing costs of coupons by reducing the number of potentially unredeemed coupons.
Direct marketing firms are primarily interested in determining the number and type of coupons redeemed by consumers after the purchase of the discounted products. This allows the marketing firms to provide retailers information about which products are desirable to shoppers based on the number of coupons redeemed and in which stores the coupons are redeemed. Additionally, direct marketing firms would be able to provide specific coupons to consumers who redeem certain types of coupons for products based on a review of the quantity and type of coupons redeemed.
Most coupons currently include, in addition to a textual advertising message, a uniform product code (UPC) bar code. The UPC bar code used is generally a one dimensional linear bar code. This linear bar code provides information about the manufacturer and brand of the product being discounted, the type of product being discounted, and the amount of discount being provided to the consumer by the coupon. The bar codes on the coupons are designed to be scanned at the time of purchase of the goods such that the point of sale terminal may verify that the coupon is valid and is being redeemed for a purchased product.
Several methods have been proposed to track redemption data by direct marketing firms to generate coupons for target consumers based on purchasing information gathered after the coupons have been used. One method of generating coupons and tracking consumer redemption information after the sale is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,908,761 issued to Tai. The Tai '761 patent discloses a system for identifying product purchasers and determining purchasing patterns using scannable stickers that can be affixed to the purchased product. The stickers include a linear uniform product code (UPC) bar code that includes data such as the type of product, size, and price of discount of the coupon. Also included in the bar code is a consumer personal identification number (PIN), which can be tracked to determine which consumers are redeeming particular coupons.
This method of gathering coupon redemption data has not been an effective method of determining consumer purchasing patterns. One of the problems with this method is that standard bar code scanners will only read a portion of the bar code and ignore the rest. As a result, the sales representative must run the coupon through the scanner twice: once for the coupon identification code and once for the consumer identification code. Often, the coupon is scanned only once by the sales representative, making the redemption of data from the coupons impractical. Additionally, the amount of information that marketing firms want to include in the bar code causes the redemption sticker to be larger than the space available on the coupon.
Another type of coupon redemption analysis system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,791,281 issued to Johnsen et al. The Johnsen '281 patent discloses a system for encoding and decoding documents which are used for the validation, tracking and correlation of data. A unique one dimensional linear bar code is printed by the system on a coupon detailing information about the product, manufacturer, issuer and discount value. A second linear bar code is applied to the coupon detailing the name and address of the coupon recipient. When the coupon is redeemed by the consumer, a scanner at the retail client's point of sale terminal scans the bar codes on the coupon. The information from the bar codes are downloaded into the store's main computer, where the information can be downloaded at a later time for analysis.
The Johnsen '281 patent does not disclose a method for analyzing the data once collected to determine consumer trends. The Johnsen patent also does not disclose a method for transferring the data from the store's computer to the off-site database for real time analysis. Additionally, the Johnsen '281 patent requires the sales representative to scan the coupon twice to gather both product and consumer data, which is an imprecise method for gathering the data.
Another example of a system for generating and redeeming product discount coupons is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,353,218 to De Lapa et al. The De Lapa '218 patent discloses a focused coupon system wherein both consumer and coupon data are encoded as one dimensional linear bar codes on coupons that can be read by point of sale scanners in the retail client's store. After the coupon has been scanned, the data is uploaded to the store's main computer, where it is eventually transferred back to the main computer containing the data redemption database. The '218 patent further discloses the use of a generic string of code that is inserted into the data record if the scanner is unable to scan the consumer information into the record. This system does not disclose the use of two dimensional bar coding or a method for analyzing consumer purchasing trends from the uploaded coupon data. Additionally, the system fails to pinpoint which consumers redeem specific coupons by inserting a generic data code rather than requiring matching consumer and product data codes.